Grassroots American dynamism

in which the author returns to public thinking

Hi, it’s Mackenzie. I went on a recent trip with four friends who are all talented writers — I’d firmly call them Internet intellectuals — and the promise I made coming out of that week was to publish my thoughts more. Here I am, staying accountable.

Five years ago, my few posts on here documented the early research I was doing into the thing that is now called Ambrook, a Series A startup building financial tools for American farmers and ranchers. We’ve grown to a distributed team of 24 people, with offices in New York and Denver. We work with thousands of operations across the country, and my team and I have roadtripped to many, many farms in the past few years.

I was speaking with a teammate whose family ranches; she was saying how hunters tend to be the biggest conservationists, because they intimately understand the relationship between stewardship and livelihood. In the era of knowledge work, it is the hunters and the ranchers and the farmers and the fisherman who are the least disconnected from the the circle of life.

Multi-hour conversations with America’s farmers and those long car rides, driving past literal amber waves of grain, have emotionally contextualized my work in a way that I struggle to describe to others. America, the beautiful.

When people in tech think of Ambrook, they often place us in the category of American dynamism. They think, well, we’re building for the future of America. Our swag has taglines of “American Prosperity” and “Stay independent.”

I think that’s partially true, but the tweak I’d make is that I view Ambrook as building at the intersection of American dynamism meets American Dream. If the implementation of American dynamism has been one of top-down capital and power, I keep on wondering: What would grassroots American dynamism look like?

Still workshopping, but here’s a raw version of that idea, as applied to Ambrook.

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The American story has always been one of reinvention.

Certainly compared to the American Dream, American dynamism is a recently coined term. When discussed, I hear about large-scale, capital-intensive efforts to revitalize critical sectors through technological advancement – a top-down approach to innovation in defense, healthcare, industry. Think the billions of AI-driven investment in datacenters.

The American Dream represents something more intimate and, perhaps, more fragile. It’s a longer-standing, grassroots vision where individuals build businesses and create prosperity through hard work and determination.

American dynamism lives in venture capital boardrooms, government contracts, and industrial research labs. The American Dream unfolds in main street storefronts, family-owned workshops, and kitchen table business plans.

In my tech circles, it seems like there’s a lot of optimism about the former, but an underlying pessimism about the latter. I don’t think that needs to be the case.

The American story has always been one of reinvention.

As the world has gotten more complex, so has the economy with all of its players.

The modern small business is no longer simple in its operations. What used to be straightforward enterprises have transformed into multi-faceted operations with diverse revenue streams and heavy balance sheets. The family farm now balances traditional agriculture with direct-to-consumer sales and agritourism. The local bakery manages in-store sales alongside wholesale accounts and e-commerce.

This complexity wasn't a choice – it was necessary for survival, and these changes accelerated during the pandemic. And now these businesses aren't retreating to simpler models; they're trying to build resilience through diversification.

The American story has always been one of reinvention.

For most of the world, it seemed like AI burst onto the scene in full force from America last year, once again changing every part of the economy with it.

While most of the media’s narrative seemed to focus on the potential for AI to take away jobs, I found a more optimistic take in a recent piece by David Autor, a labor economist and professor of economics at MIT.

He writes that computerization itself concentrated decision-making power among elite experts and hollowed out middle-class jobs. AI – what he calls an "inversion technology” – might actually reverse this trend by democratizing expertise. AI can provide real-time guidance that enables everyday workers to engage in higher-stakes decision-making previously reserved for specialists, like lawyers and financial advisors.

The American story has always been one of reinvention.

Most business software was designed for simpler business models. As small businesses develop multiple profit centers, they find themselves caught in a capability gap – too sophisticated for basic tools yet unable to afford enterprise-grade solutions.

Applying the “inversion technology” of AI to small business, this means that sophisticated financial analysis could become accessible to everyday business owners who possess deep domain expertise but may lack specialized financial knowledge.

This is where American dynamism can actually meet the American Dream – using advanced technology to empower grassroots entrepreneurship.

This vision becomes particularly meaningful when considering environmental challenges. In an era of climate instability and growing resource scarcity, a resilient American future must also be a more sustainable one.

Making sustainable choices requires financial clarity and decision-making confidence – exactly what many small businesses currently lack. By giving small businesses better tools for financial management, we create the breathing room for longer-term thinking about environmental stewardship. And this stewardship is what ultimately drives better profits, in the end. At Ambrook, we call this pragmatic environmentalism.

Ambrook is building for this vision by creating tools that help complex small businesses organize their financial data, understand profitability across multiple streams, and make more confident decisions without requiring external expertise. By leveraging AI to make sophisticated financial management accessible, we aim to give business owners the capability to become more profitable and resilient – ultimately enabling them to stay independent.

The end goal here isn't just better software. It's about building economic resilience from the ground up. It's making sure the American Dream stays viable in a changing world, and ensuring that technological innovation and capital flows not just to major institutions but to the millions of small businesses that form the backbone of our economy.

The American story has always been one of reinvention, and so we reinvent ourselves.